Parkview Training Podcast

If we go back to our DWD, it's this definition of a whole disciple in which we call live Jesus. Within that, we have these three subcategories. And one of the ways that we would say someone lives Jesus well is if they steward all of life for God's glory. We understand this idea of stewardship. It's, you know, it's through, we find it throughout scripture. And 1 Peter 4:10 says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. As good stewards of God's varied grace. In 1 Chronicles, we find both riches and honor come from you. You rule overall in your hand are power, and in might and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
James 1:17. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Colossians 3, what a great chapter, right? Verses 23 and 24, whatever you do, work at it, hardily as for the Lord, not for men. Knowing that from the Lord, you'll receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Matthew 25, his master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master, or Proverbs chapter 3, 9 and 10. Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your produce, then your Barnes will be filled with plenty in your vats will be bursting with wine. Finally, one we probably know well, 2 Corinthians 9:6 and 7.
The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give, as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. So when we talk about being a steward, we hear, you know, we look at all those various texts that say things about it. But when we talk about being a steward in plain language, really it's, it's coming to a point of understanding that the Christian understands that everything is from God. It's owned by him. It's not even for us. I mean, yes, we are blessed with it, but it's all about him. Therefore, everything we have is actually his and we're to act as caretakers of what is his.
His ways and desires are supreme. He knows best and our personal desires need to fall into submission to his. So it really is this idea of, of management. God entrusts you with that which is his, and you need to steward it well. And I think the problem sometimes comes in that we, we don't see it as his. We see it as ours. And that's where we can go astray really quickly because we become selfish and we start to make decisions about our time, about our resources, about things we're planning or priorities based upon what we want, as opposed to being stewards of all that is his, which is our own lives. So one of the things we'd want to say is if we're gonna go back, and again, a DWD is a definition of a whole disciple, so we've gotta have some idea of understanding what this looks like if it's healthy.
So I would say it's this idea of open-handed living. It's, it's the idea that I'm not gonna run around and grab onto everything and hold so tight to it and guard it as though it's mine. And I think along with that open-handed living, we get to this point of, of letting some of the anxieties of this life and, and all that comes with it. It, it lets those down a little bit. You know, anybody who's owned a lot of things realize is that it just is a lot of stress, right? Just to maintain things. And when we release those things to the Lord and, and don't look at 'em as though this is mine and I, I make all the decisions, there's really a freeing point to that. And so then we, then we live life with this open-handed mindset of, hey, what's mine is the kingdom’s. And yes, I'm steward of it. I'm to care for it. I'm to be wise with it. I'm not to be reckless with it, but I like the term joyfully generous. I mean, that's what we saw there in, in 2 Corinthians 9, right? You know, to, to have decided in your heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, but cheerfully. And again, a lot, a lot of this goes towards finances, but it really is, it's of our time too. What do we do with our time? What are our priorities? How, how much do we consider others more important than ourselves? It's that generous way of living and, and joyfully generous with our time, resources, our wisdom and so on. If I wanna go grow in this area, what would one practice be that might help you em embrace it if it was established? And, and I would say it has to start with our mindset toward what's really valuable to us.
There are some people that just don't really care that much about money. It's just, it's, it's a means to an end. It's, you know, it's a way to pay the rent or the mortgage. It's a way to to eat, but they don't really care about that. But they might care about other things. They might guard their time and they might, whatever. So I would say starting with what maybe we guard the closest is really examining that and saying, do I need to relax in this area? For many people it's, it's just the, our finances and our resources and it's, can we back up and, and joyfully give the Lord the first fruits of all that we have. A good friend of mine, I remember him talking to me about, about tithing, and he went through a lot of schooling and he made a decision even back in schooling to tithe off of his student loans.
And his reasoning behind that was everything was the Lord's It was, yes, he was borrowing, have to pay it back. But the mindset was even those loans were a provision from God. And the Lord has just blessed him and, and his family, he's doing very well, continues to be very generous and often in a, in a stealthy way. I'm sure he is more generous than I'm even aware of. But the mindset was even, even when there's little, I'm faithful in that, or even when it's tight, I'm faithful in that. And it's, it's just totally changing our heart toward how we look at things. And then, then you take that from those, that central thing that most, maybe most trying one or most challenging one. And then you move that into other areas of your life. It's okay when, when I look at how I've scheduled the week, yes, work demands a certain amount of time to me, but even during my lunch hours, is there a way that I can be a blessing to others?
Or is that just a me time? Or what do I do with that time that's designated for my hobbies and things like that? And in what ways can I even use my hobbies to glorify the Lord or bless somebody else? Or maybe it means that there's a hobby that I do, but I'm, I, I bring in a, a young student who maybe doesn't have a dad and, and I work with him on this hobby and pull him into that and it gives me that chance for discipleship again, still doing things that I love, but, but doing it alongside someone who, who could really gain from that. And I guarantee when we start thinking that way and stewarding our time, even our, our, our hobbies, we, we then get to see that man, there's more, way more fulfilling way to use our time because God can be working in that. Cuz why we've said, I, I'm open-handed even about my time off even about my hobby. So I think the goal is that it, we get to that mindset where we're just joyfully generous. There are many books on this and I was struggling to think of what some of the, that were, that were significant. And, and I'm not sure about some of the more recent ones that Tim Keller's written Every good endeavor and I think Uncommon Ground, an older one that goes way back. But Charles Swindoll, he wrote Living above the level of mediocrity. And I, I think he addresses that subject real well. I think sometimes it helps to have, you know, a real life picture of this and I have a good friend who is just a humble, humble guy. And, and he does not live life in a fancy way at all in, he doesn't buy new stuff or wear fancy clothes or update his house or anything like that.
One of the things that he would do on a regular basis is he would put funds into an account and he would just say, bless people with this. And he would say, however, however you think it needs to be done. And, you know, it was kind of funny because sometimes he would get on my case a little bit about going, there's too much money in the account. You're not, you're not blessing people enough. And he, he wasn't worried about who it went to or how it was used. I had another accountability network just cause I wanted it for me. But that mindset, you know, a worldly perspective would say, you know, if you held this back, you could, you know, buy yourself a new vehicle. You, you could do things in your house. And, and that wasn't his mindset. It was mindset was, it's not mine, it's, it's God's who am I to hold onto it? Or who am I to make my life this much better with God's resources? And it was fun to be able to report to him sometimes the way that people responded to those blessings. Sometimes it was helping somebody get a used car or, or coming in and, and paying rent for a single mom or, or helping somebody with a student loan or something like that. It was just, it was such a cool thing. And I, I loved his mindset and his, his biggest rule was, nobody's to know that I'm doing this. And he said, when they want to thank somebody, just tell 'em to thank God. And I think that's such a cool mindset. And that's, that's the beauty of that generosity and secret too. It kind of speaks to what we see in Matthew 6 there that, you know, not letting the right hand know what the left hand's doing. It's just these side handoffs of, of blessings that way the the credit has to go to God. And I just thought his mindset on that was really cool. Living open handedly. What a great way to live. To bring glory to God.